Updated

05/01/2015 - 4:00pm

State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced on Monday that the city will prosecute six officers over the death of Freddie Gray, with charges rising all the way to second-degree murder. The decision sparked immediate and mostly positive reaction from the city.

The frightening scenes of urban unrest in Baltimore, and in Ferguson Missouri before that, reflect a long-smoldering distrust of police in African-American communities nationwide. A lot of departments, Baltimore’s among them, have made substantive strides in recent years increasing diversity. But Census Bureau statistics also indicate that police in many of America’s largest cities still don’t reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

Danielle and Alexander Meitive of Silver Spring, Maryland, think their kids should be allowed to play in their neighborhood without being constantly watched. But the state of Maryland disagrees, and has threatened to take their children away — a threat that may be far more damaging than just the risks of playing alone.

Public schools in Montgomery Country, Maryland, recently ended all religious holidays — at least in name — rather than adding Muslim ones to the school calendar. But is the practice of giving religious holidays off in public schools even legal in the first place?

Updated

09/08/2014 - 9:15am

Doctors and medical researchers are moving quickly on two fronts in the fight against the Ebola virus. They are aiming to develop an effective treatment based on the experimental drug ZMapp, and they have just started testing a vaccine in human trials.

The frightening scenes of urban unrest in Baltimore, and in Ferguson Missouri before that, reflect a long-smoldering distrust of police in African-American communities nationwide. A lot of departments, Baltimore’s among them, have made substantive strides in recent years increasing diversity. But Census Bureau statistics also indicate that police in many of America’s largest cities still don’t reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

Poet and author Marjorie Agosin was born in the US but she and her family moved back to Chile when she was just 3-months-old. Then, when she was a teenager, they decided to move back to the US. They settled in Athens, Georgia. Agosin tells us the story of her first days in the US.